When ABC, CBS and NBC broadcasts mention what graduates owe, they go to extremes.

By

Julia A. Seymour

May 22, 2013 - 10:11am

Recent
college grads are in a tough spot, with student loans that need
repayment and an economy that is leaving many of them underemployed or
worse. But the network news media have exaggerated individual burdens of
student debt by using examples of enormous rather than average debts.
They’ve also often ignored systemic problems that have led to the
“crisis” of student loan defaults, at the same time that the left has
called for bailouts.

When
network news stories include college students who talk about how much
they owe for their education, the average amount was a whopping $66,833.
But the 2012 average student loan debt, was much lower: $27,253.

In
the past year of network coverage about student loans there were 12
stories that mentioned how much someone owed. One particular ABC report
mentioned three people, who all owe much more than the average. Out of
those 12 stories, nine of them cited people who owed far more than the
2012 average $27,000 in debt for an undergraduate degree -- on average
245 percent more! Complicating the issue, reporters didn’t always
clarify whether the debts included graduate school loans too.

It
is true that overall student debt is mounting: the total outstanding
debt crossed the $1 trillion mark in late 2012. Early defaults also rose
in 2011 [those who defaulted within two years of their first payment]
and President Barack Obama wants to increase eligibility for income-based repayment[1]
which would force taxpayers to foot the bill for the balances that
would be forgiven after 20 years of minimal payments (less for public
sector and nonprofit workers), The Wall Street Journal reported May 10,
2013.

ABC
“World News” aired a piece called “Generation Debt” about mounting
student debt on May 13, 2012. In it they included three Columbia
University graduates, all with higher than average debts: $40,000, more
than $100,000, and $120,000. The girl who was $120,000 in debt said,
“it's just an investment in your future. It sounds cliche, but it's
true.”

While
a college education can be an investment in your future, ABC’s report
focused on students at the fourth most expensive college with its total
annual cost of $58,742, according to rankings by Campus Grotto[2].
The report failed to point that out for viewers, although it did
discuss the Occupy Wall Street movement’s complaints regarding student
debt.

NBC
“Nightly News” focused on millennials being stressed out because of
high debts and solicited feedback through facebook for the Feb. 7, 2013
broadcast. Unsurprisingly, the network was contacted by many people
including 24- year-old Allie Zimmerman, who has nearly $80,000 in
student loans. Nancy Snyderman then turned to Dr. Katherine Nordal from
the American Psychological Association who warned, “Many of these
students have come out of college or graduate school with horrendous
student debt, into a job market where there are not many jobs. This has
put their life plans, probably, on hiatus. They may be postponing
marriage, postponing having a family.”

CBS “Evening News” also tackled the “growing problem of student loans[3],”
on March 17, 2013. They focused on Anna Espinoza and her $48,000 in art
school debt. She has struggled to find a job in interior design and has
fallen behind in her loan payments. She wants the system changed.

“There
needs to be a change made on how easily they're given out and how high
the interest and how long they can keep you in debt for like the rest of
your life, really,” Espinoza said.

Complaints
like hers fit right in with left-wing clamoring for a student loan
bailout. Campus Progress, a project of the left-wing and Soros-funded
Center for American Progress, has many articles on the subject including
an editorial from Georgetown University’s student publication.

The editorial griped, “Just
as the housing crisis trapped millions of Americans in suffocating
mortgages, student debt is preventing millions of college graduates from
attaining a basic level of financial security and achieving a decent
standard of living. Like the toxic no-asset, no-income loans that
sparked the economic crisis in 2008, banks hand out huge loans to students, despite grim job prospects that leave little opportunity for repayment.[4]
And as the bubble hones in on $1 trillion, private loan agencies
continue to rake in the profits. It’s crony capitalism at its very
finest.”

Of
course liberals love to blame lenders for the people having debt even
when no one forced these students to borrow the money. It was their
choice. Also, calling it crony capitalism is ironic since the editorial
was published in April 2012, years after the 2010 government takeover of
the student loan system.

Time
magazine reported on April 5, 2010, that if the ObamaCare bill was
passed then “the federal government would sweep aside private
competitors in the biggest change to the federal student-loan program
since its creation in 1965. It’s a legitimate government takeove[5]r.”
Even before that, the government was very involved in student loans,
subsidizing such lending and shouldering much of the burden for
defaults.

Calling
the situation the “Second Great Depression,” Jackson opined that
“students should not have to worry about loan repayment while they are
unemployed and looking for work. Nor should compound interest mount
during periods of unemployment.”

Student
debt was also one of many complaints of Occupy Wall Street protesters.
In the 2012 campaign, Obama often brought up his desire to stop a
student loan interest rate hike.

But
according to Bloomberg Businessweek student loan defaults are a
“needless tragedy” because there are “many good options for debt relief
-- deferment, forbearance, or reductions in monthly payments.”

Student
borrowers like to complain that college tuition is too high. In some
cases tuition is very expensive and climbing, but it important to
remember that no student is forced to choose a costly school over a less
expensive one. Just as they aren’t forced to borrow for their
education.

Neal
McCluskey, associate director of Cato Institute’s Center for
Educational Freedom, wrote in the American Spectator online in February
2008 that the real inflaters of college tuition lies in Washington which
lavishes “aid on students that pushes tuition up, up, up.”[8]

[8]

“There
are many cost-driving excesses in higher education — luxurious dorms,
unused classroom space, growing bureaucracies, expensive academic
journals, and the list goes on — that are intermediate causes of the
college cost problem. They are all, however, undergirded by a single
reality: You can’t charge an arm and a leg unless people can pay it, and
to curry favor with colleges, kids, and parents Washington ensures that
those limbs keep coming, taking them from taxpayers and giving them to
students and schools,” McCluskey wrote. He then cited the growth of
federal student aid which “ballooned from $48.7 billion in the 1996-97
academic years to almost $86.3 billion in 2006-07, a 77 percent leap.”

Another
problem is that unlike most kinds of loans, student loans are offered
regardless of whether that person is a good credit risk. As Bloomberg
Businessweek noted: “[S]ome of these student borrowers were probably
lousy bets for repayment in the first place. The federal government,
which holds 85 percent of outstanding student debt, doesn’t make loans
to students based on their ability to repay them. That may sound crazy,
but it is designed to ensure that students of all backgrounds and income
levels get a shot at a college degree.”

A
noble goal perhaps, but the consequence has been increasing defaults
especially in recent years as graduates struggle to find work.

Jackson
Toby, professor of sociology emeritus at Rutgers University and adjunct
school for AEI, wrote for The American that “Too many have enrolled in
college believing they could have four years of fun and graduate from any four-year college after majoring in any
field — gender studies, sociology, ethnic studies — and obtain
well-paying jobs easily. Unfortunately for them, the market for college
graduates has changed.”

The
bailout plan in Obama’s budget would only make the problem worse
according to some. University of Maryland economist Peter Morici wrote
that “Debt forgiveness simply encourages young people and parents to
continue poor choices and borrow too much, and colleges to push up
tuition-things the nation can't afford. It certainly won't help
graduates find jobs.”

The
Wall Street Journal noted that critics of the plan also say the
administration is underestimating how much it will cost taxpayers.
“Economists at Barclays[10] BARC.LN +0.55%[11]
PLC said the current program, along with loan defaults, could cost the
government $300 billion between now and 2020. Barclays hasn't released
an estimate of the Obama proposal's costs.”

The
same article said, “some GOP lawmakers and private analysts have
criticized the current income-based repayment program. In their view, it
encourages students to take on big debt, knowing much of it will be
forgiven, and enables schools to raise tuition, relying on the
government to pick up the tab.”

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